Motherhood..."That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger..." (umm...right?!)

Monday, 27 June 2016

"Slummy-Single-Mummying It"

One of the last things the husband said to me yesterday before departing for his much anticipated eight day cycle adventure from hell (well, hell by my standards anyway...I get winded just pedalling my Brompton up the slight incline to our street) was this: "Remember, it's all about survival. Just give them what they want and make it easy for yourself."

He was of course referring to the monsters and the creeping dread I've had about 'single parenting' whilst he's away. For him, a typical afternoon jaunt with the boys in tow almost invariably ends with a protracted solo visit to the pub after dropping them back home, shaking his head in defeat and muttering something like, "I wasn't cut out for this," as he legs it out the door to my plaintive, "Well I wasn't either!...Hey, when are you coming back? You are coming back?....Please come back..." In other words, he gets it. He knows that by day three I'm likely to start panic texting him in the Alps (where he's cycling a gazillion kilometres up and down mountains from Geneva, Switzerland across to Venice, Italy with one of his 'besties' - another like-minded MAMIL (middle aged man in lycra), demanding he return AT ONCE or will have to collect his offspring from various temporary foster homes upon his return.

Okay, so I'm sounding a wee bit dramatic as the boys are not exactly terrors per se, but when the planets align such that they ALL kick off at the same time, and I've not had much sleep, and Squit has wet not only his bed again but my bed as well (having snuck in for a cuddle in the middle of the night) and Dumpie has lost the power cord for his ipad (the only thing keeping him from staging an impromptu coup just for the fun of it) and Egg has just discovered a plastic Sainsbury's bag under Squit's bed containing a multitude of plastic pieces which in its previous form was a beloved limited edition Japanese speed cube...well, you get the picture.

Now to be fair, I must confess that for the next few days Egg is away on a school trip, so at least I'll only have the two to contend with. That means I don't have to wake and fall asleep to the persistent sound of lightning fast creaking cubes being relentlessly twisted into submission and can temporarily remove the not insignificant number of sweets and biscuits I've been forced to stash in my wardrobe (the most recent hiding place, for it changes weekly given Egg is a renowned sugar junkie and if left to his own devices would devour every E-number in sight until falling into a diabetic coma). On the other hand, neither Dumps, Squit nor my good self are what you would call 'morning people.' Egg however can be reliably counted on to 'wake and cube' starting round about 6:30am daily. There is no danger of sleeping through an alarm on a school day when he's around. So to that end, I have about five alarms set for tomorrow morning and as a further precautionary measure am sleeping with my blinds open, so on the odd chance it's sunny I'll be woken with a jolt of migraine-inducing rays. Well that's the plan anyway.

Going to sign off now. Watching Coldplay close Glastonbury on the telly is proving rather distracting. The worst dressed man in Rock is currently doing some hardcore autistic piano bench rocking and incorporating some rather confusing high kicks into his stage choreography. If I didn't know any better I'd say that he was attempting the first ever Hokey Pokey on the infamous Pyramid Stage. He's sporting such a crazy grin that I can only assume that he's either on the best drugs ever or has recently joined Scientology and is having a major Theta moment.

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ABOUT ME...

I am a well-intentioned but frequently disillusioned wife and mother, cathartically blogging about the daily frustrations of raising three(!) boys (Egg 12, Dumpie 10, and Squitty 'the baby' 5...) whilst trying to forge a career in music.
As a frustrated artist, domestic slave, and hardcore fashionista , life is a constant struggle of trying not to lose the plot whilst keeping a sense of self.
Throw in a husband who also refuses to "grow up", wonderfully dysfunctional family and friends, and you get a shambolic household that shouldn't work - but somehow does.
These domestic adventures and random observations of the world at large (fueled in part by excessive daily intake of chocolate and caffeine) are contained herein. Welcome to my world...